Chapter 2: Sebastian Princeton, Prince of Hearts

Sebastian Princeton wanted to throttle his triplet siblings—Tristan and Logan—for making his life a living hell. First, they invited themselves into his luxurious apartment in Manhattan. Though there were five large bedrooms, a fitness room, a modern kitchen, and a comfy lounge, he still thought it was a bit crowded, having gotten used to living alone for the past five years with only the occasional visits from his parents and grandparents.

The first night, they brought in their friends and had a blast partying in the house, emptying his cellar and fridge and destroying some of his precious paintings and photographs he’d bought from an unknown, talented artist he admired. The second night, they refused to let him stay home to finish his work and dragged him out drinking until the early hours of the morning. Their argument was, “It’s Saturday!” The third night, they told him to get packing because they were leaving for St. Joseph Island three days early for their cousin Mary’s wedding to surprise the bride-to-be—and their mom and dad, of course.

Sebastian knew instantly it was that damn Tristan’s idea, who only wanted to annoy the hell out of him, and naturally, Logan went along. Then Hayden arrived on his motorbike, crashing on Sebastian’s king-size bed without an invitation, informing them he was now homeless and girlfriendless. His girlfriend had kicked him out after she’d seen him hugging another guy and had wrongly assumed him to be gay and cheating on her. The guy, of course, turned out to be Darcy.

Tristan burst out laughing until his stomach hurt when Hayden explained that he’d been comforting Darcy by patting Darcy’s shoulder—not hugging him—who’d had a bad breakdown because his girlfriend dumped him for another guy. Then Darcy arrived—all wounded and heartbroken like a little pup—as Tristan kept telling everyone, including Darcy himself, who in fact didn’t give a shit whether this new ex-girlfriend of his dumped him or not and was indeed very glad the stagnated relationship was over.

Tristan insisted they had no choice but to comfort Darcy by taking him out drinking until early dawn, which in due course led to a house full of men with hangovers the next morning accompanied by lots of moaning, groaning, and of course, very colorful cursing from Darcy, who naturally wanted to also throttle Tristan for his distasteful tricks. They all knew Darcy couldn’t handle much alcohol, and they forced him to have shots after shots.

By that evening, they were completely sober except for Darcy, who was still nursing his headache. Sebastian, on the other hand, had had enough and swore if this ever happened again, he’d throttle his brothers for sure.

The next day, Sebastian was on a warpath once again. It was entirely their fault that he was now as wet and cold as a drowned kitten and his laptop stuffed up. If Tristan and Logan hadn’t been fooling around near the railing on the lower deck of their two-million-dollar, brand-spanking-new luxury yacht, trying to get a peek at his new apartment plan, then he and his laptop wouldn’t have gotten thrown off board into the ocean. Furthermore, if he wasn’t such an excellent swimmer since he’d been one of the best professional athlete swimmers during his late teens, he could have buried himself and his laptop deep under the ocean.

“I’m sure Hayden can fix it,” Tristan said coolly, throwing him a dry towel.

Sebastian glared at his brother as the towel landed on his head, partially covering his face and eyes that were glinting with fire.

“Nope. Can’t fix it,” Hayden said matter-of-factly. “It’s totally stuffed, bro. Better get a new one.”

“Jesus! My work!” Sebastian muttered, looking heavenward as he pulled down the towel. “It’s not the laptop! It’s my work!” he growled.

“Surely you have a backup, right?” Conrad, the youngest of the brothers, put in calmly from the other side of the pool.

“Of course, but—”

“Ah.” Logan butted in, putting down his martini. “Girlfriends.”

“What?” Sebastian snapped. He was at his limit and was ready to throw at least one of them into the ocean, and that person was preferably Tristan who was smiling cheekily on the other side of the pool a good distance away.

Tristan knew he was in trouble, and it was best for him to keep out of reach since Sebastian had very powerful fists. After all, Tristan had seen too many times to count when perfectly good-looking faces got restructured into very distorted ones with a few of Sebastian’s mighty punches. Of course, Tristan didn’t want his gorgeous face to be ruined, and what would he do without his handsome face and flirty smile? The girls wouldn’t bed him, that was for sure, and Tristan would be very devastated indeed.

“He’s pissed because all his girlfriends’ photos are ruined,” Logan said matter-of-factly, emphasizing the word girlfriends as plural.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Sebastian replied. Though he had to admit it was losing the photos that really pissed him off since he hadn’t backed up some of the most recent ones on his hard drive.

“I didn’t know you had a girlfriend, Sebastian,” Tara said, sitting across from him, her slender body posing elegantly on the poolside lounge. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and leaned toward Sebastian—the brother she’d always wanted. Only, so far, she’d never been able to grab his attention let alone his interest in her as a woman. In fact, all the brothers had always treated her like a sister, like they treated Alaina, which annoyed the hell out of her.

“He doesn’t,” Alaina butted in, pulling herself out of the water. She grabbed a towel resting on the side of the pool, wrapped it around her, and sat down beside Tara. “My poor brothers,” she said. “When will you all get a nice girl and settle down? Aside from you, of course, Conrad, since you’re still too young.”

Conrad snorted at his sister to show her his annoyance and returned his attention to his tablet, playing the new, not-yet-released zombie game Hayden and Darcy had given him as a trial from their video game company, HD Game, Inc., which they had built themselves from scratch a year ago.

“Don’t feel sorry for me, Alaina. I’m not ready to get tied down yet.” Nicolas chuckled. “I like my freedom.” He took a sip of his cocktail and then relaxed back on the poolside divan, gazing up at the sky above. “Twenty-eight is still too young to settle down,” he murmured to himself.

“What about Dad’s offer?” Darcy asked.

Nicolas raised his brows.

“Didn’t he want you to take over Princeton Group?” Sebastian queried. “He’s ready to retire.”

Nicolas sighed. Of course, all the brothers knew their dad had been asking him to take over the business, but Nicolas didn’t feel he was ready to take on such a big job as CEO of their family empire, the Princeton Group—aside from the fact that he had three of his own businesses to take care of, even though they were mostly online and his employees were outsourced.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while now,” he said. “I’ll take a look at it this spring and decide then.”

“Aside from that,” Alaina said, “none of you are bringing any girls home to meet Mom and Dad?” She turned to Hayden. “Where’s your girlfriend? What’s her name? Judith or Julie or something?”

“We broke up,” Hayden snapped.

“He got dumped.” Tristan gladly offered. This of course welcomed a death-ray glare from Hayden.

“And you, Darcy?” Tara asked. “What about Kate?”

Darcy frowned at Tara, telling her to piss off and mind her own business.

Tara thought Darcy’s dislike of her had grown even more in these past few years. This frustrated and pissed her off because she couldn’t understand why he was like that toward her. These feelings multiplied since she had a crush on him. Well, she couldn’t help herself, and what woman could? Especially with him looking like that… with dark hair and smoldering mauve-gray eyes. Not to mention his tall, lean body—toned and well maintained via years of training and hard work. Any woman would want that body in her bed—Tara included.

“He got dumped.” Tristan supplied.

Darcy grabbed a towel and threw it at Tristan. The force of the throw caused the towel to smack right on the side of Tristan’s face. Instead of cursing, the older brother laughed and said, as he watched Darcy walking past him toward the stairs that’d lead him up to the high-diving platform above, “Get over it, Darcy boy. She’ll come begging for you again like all of your other ex-girlfriends did.”

Darcy was over it. He was sick of women smothering him with what they thought was love but was in fact lust, clinginess, and jealousy. When he’d started dating this last one, Kate Anderson, he hadn’t known it was one of Alaina’s friends. If he had known, he wouldn’t have gone out with the woman in the first place. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t had a choice since the beginning. Alaina had cunningly gotten him drunk, and the next thing he knew, he was in bed with Kate. The next day, she practically moved in with him.

Now he was only too glad to be rid of her. Well, more specifically, she had gotten rid of herself, since she hadn’t been able to control herself from screwing another guy in their apartment, which he happened to witness by accident. Her reasoning? He hadn’t had sex with her since that first night, and it had been five months. Then of course she had the gall to accuse him of cheating on her. He hadn’t said a word—just coldly stared at her and then walked out again. The next day, he had texted her and told her it was over. Now he felt as though a heavy burden had lifted off his chest.

Standing there on the diving platform and gazing off into the endless blue horizon, he breathed in the salty ocean air. He closed his eyes, his face serene, and then he jumped and expertly did a beautiful somersault as his body soared down into the pool below.

Tara and Alaina applauded after Darcy slipped into the water with barely a splash.

Logan said, “Who wants another drink?”

Most shook their heads, and Tara turned her attention to Sebastian, now rubbing his wet, blond mane with the towel. She admired his body. She had to admit he had one of the best she’d ever seen, with firm muscles and toned six-pack abs. What girl didn’t want to run her fingers—oh ever so slowly—down those abs of his? And those blue eyes, the color of the summer sky, so vibrant they took a girl’s breath away. She was sure if she dated him every woman would envy her. Of course, she was sure guys secretly envied him as well. Not to mention, he was smart and rich and at only twenty-six years of age had accomplished so much. With his real estate business and investments going international, now he was planning to get another business up and running.

Deep down she was glad all the brothers were still single because it made her feel special, like all those times when they’d been children when she was the center of their worlds. Now she wanted that again. She wanted all seven of them around her. But most of all, she wanted Sebastian Princeton. She wanted him to love her as a woman. Then again, she also wanted Darcy—despite he was a year younger than her and didn’t seem to have any interest in her whatsoever, which of course made the chasing even more exciting. The choices. They were so hard to make, and she felt just like a kid in the candy shop.

Tara grinned and lay back, feeling the warm sun on her skin. She had this spring to work on it. Sooner or later Sebastian—or Darcy, for that matter—would be hers.

“I can see South Hampton from here,” Darcy said from the high-diving platform, drawing everyone’s attention to the one and only town on St. Joseph Island that appeared in the distance.

It was a picturesque island with Mount St. Joseph standing grandly in the middle, the lush, green woods surrounding it and the historic, Victorian town securely nestled against its bosom to the west side.

This was their hometown, had been the Princetons’ hometown since 1750 when the first generation had arrived from England and made this island theirs.

Not long after, the luxury yacht, the Lady Elizabeth, came into the harbor of St. Joseph Island, and soon they were ready to drive home to Princeton Manor, which was located on the other side of the island, about twenty-five minutes’ drive from town.

Once they were out of the busy, tourist-infested town, they pretty much had the road to themselves, and Tristan being Tristan went over the speed limit and, just to annoy Sebastian, dangerously overtook his brother.

“He’s being bloody childish,” Sebastian said under his breath.

“He wants to annoy you—again,” Nicolas commented matter-of-factly, his attention on his tablet.

“Tell me when we get home.” Conrad informed them before closing his eyes and making himself comfortable on the back seat next to Darcy.

Sebastian frowned when both Tristan and Logan waved at him from the other car, urging him to try to overtake them if he could.

“There they go again,” Darcy said, shaking his head.

Sebastian wasn’t taking the bait. He knew better than to get lured into his brother’s trap. Then just when he thought it wouldn’t get any more annoying, Tristan honked at him continuously, waking up Conrad.

“That bastard is annoying as hell,” Conrad muttered, glaring at the car in front of them.

“I see trouble coming,” Darcy murmured under his breath, knowing very well how Sebastian would respond to the challenge.

On cue, Sebastian stomped his foot on the accelerator. He quickly changed lanes and overtook the black car in front of them with ease. When he saw the shocked look on Tristan’s face, Sebastian smiled with satisfaction and sped up even more. He laughed, knowing very well he had left his brothers in his dust once again.

“Good job, Seb.” Conrad chuckled.

“Better slow down, Seb,” Darcy said, noting they were going way too fast.

A split second later, it happened. The car turned a corner onto a narrow road, which was covered by thick woods on both sides. Before he knew it, Sebastian quickly stepped on the brake, his heart pounding with dread as the car headed straight toward the person who suddenly materialized as if out of the blue onto the middle of the road.

“Holy shit!” Conrad shrieked.

“Watch out!” Darcy shouted.